What Might Have Been.

NASCAR Cup Series Mark Martin 1990

1990 no pun intended marks a giant what if for Mark Martin. He made his Cup debut in 1981 for Bud Reeder and would race full time in 82. 1983 however couldn't race full time for instead it provided a part time effort for Jim Stacy, D.K Ulrich, Emanuel Zervakis, and Larry McClure. Afterwards he didn't race for 3 years. In 1986 Jerry Gunderman got Mark 5 races that season. The following year the Arkansas native ran in Xfinity full time and did pretty good with 3 victories, 5 top 5s, 13 top 10s, 6 poles and an 8th place points finish. That performance was enough for Jack Roush to hire this man for a full time Cup ride. Roush Racing was a new team so 1988 wasn't something to ride home about. However in 89 they did very well with them getting their first win in Cup and a championship capable 3rd place points finish. So a new decade looked up for Martin and the 6 team. It didn't start out well at Daytona with a disappointing 21st place run. Next up was Richmond though where they started 6th and ran good to start off but faded a little in the mid part of the race to the back of the top 10 for a small oil leak caused by a taped cowl. Once they removed the tape Martin was able to get his way back to contention behind Rusty Wallace and Dale Earnhardt. A yellow came out late bringing the field to the pits for 1 final pitstop. Team manager and basically head strategist Steve Hmiel makes the call to put 2 tires on hoping to just get 5 free bonus points while they still could thinking they wouldn't win straight up. Wallace and Earnhardt were the dominant cars in the end and Martin had a long run car so crew chief Robin Pemberton said to the media that they had to take a gamble. Well it works out! They won! The 2 tire call got Mark Martin to lead the final 16 laps to win his 2nd carrier race for himself and for team owner Jack Roush! That has to feel so warm especially on a day where the temperature was borderline FREEZING. But just when you think things were warm hearted and jolly they instantly get cold. As the teams were in the process of preparing for post race inspection Richard Childress comes up with an official and was pointing out the engine of the 6 car so NASCAR runs them out to have a closer look at the motor and they did find something fishy. The NASCAR rulebook says you can only have a 2 inch carburetor spacer. Mark Martin's car had a 2 and 1/2 inch carburetor spacer bolted on the car. They got fined 40,000 dollars and penalized 46 points for their actions. A lot of people thought that was WAY TOO harsh comparing to getting a death sentence for shoplifting. The 46 points were equal to a 10th place finish which in this case was the last car on the lead lap. That was very controversial and as the years went by members of the Roush team Steve Hmiel, Robin Pemberton, and Mark Martin have given their sides of the story of what happened behind the scenes either on a interview shortly after or on podcasts almost 30 years later. Apparently when the 6 team was first founded like I said earlier there wasn't that competitive in 88. But Hmiel said on a podcast that in Daytona the previous race an incident happened in inspection. Back in the 90s NASCAR didn't have all the technology they do now to check every last thing so they just simply put a official to visually give the thumbs up or thumbs down. The 6 car initially got the thumbs down cause the roof was too low. It turns out Robin Pemberton and the crew lowered it trying to get every last advantage they can which everyone at some point will do trying to get RIGHT on the edge. So in response Jack Roush decides to hang out in the inspection room where all the cars go to which did not get appreciated by NASCAR, no penalty it was just frowned upon. Now back to Richmond when the crew was told of the penalty Jack Roush said to Steve Hmiel "Well, I figured at in my NASCAR career some time I'd get caught cheating but not for something as stupid this" Hmiel replied "What happened?"
"It was that spacer Robin told me to make." Said Roush. So to get more into detail Mark Martin said on his podcast that in Robin's mind the spacer was legal because one of the manufacturers apparently had a disadvantage when it came down to carburetor spacers so NASCAR in an attempt to level out the playing field allowed all the manufacturers which were Chevrolet, Ford, Buick, Oldsmobile, and Pontiac to weld on as big of a spacer as they wanted. But like I mentioned before it was bolted on. The 6 team decides to appeal but while that is in the process the crew aim to bounce back at race the 3rd race out of 29 in Rockingham. While he did run well and at one point got up as high as 2nd the engine expired from a bad valve ending their race and to continue their pretty rough start the appeal the team did backfired. The $40,000 fine and 46 points penalty stayed. The reason for it was the fact that the illegal spacer was bolted on. NASCAR was allowing teams to add height to the intake manifold where you could weld as much height as you wanted. The morale is if the 2 and 1/2 inch spacer was WELDED on no harm no foul, it wouldn't be a problem but because it was BOLTED on while it gave no to if anything gave a microscopic advance was against the rules and there was nothing the team could do about it now. Mark Martin though took it well despite the disappointment of being 17th in points saying all he and Roush could do is move on with 26 races left in the season. In Atlanta he got back on track with a 5th place run. In Darlington he fell to top 10 early on but the crew was able to adjust on the car making it a a top 5 caliber car but when a big wreck occurred on the frontstretch seemed to hinder his race. Luckily he escaped with basically no damage cause he only just spun. With about 30 to go Mark drove his way up to 4th with the leaders in sight but gets Darlington stripe in 1 and 2. It looked like his chance for victory has vanished but a late yellow has bunched the field up for pitstops. The Folgers crew gained their man a spot and then Martin gained another out on track putting him in prime position to challenge Dale Earnhardt for the win after one last cause bunched the field up for a 3 lap shootout.